A Few Smiles

Introducing our next generation of athletes! My guess is that “Staring Contests” and “Teething Contests” will be in the sports hall of fame soon and I think I know who will be inducted! I just can’t wait to visit my Kavan and Rylee. How cute are they? I spoke to Kavan on the phone yesterday and he asked when I was coming so he could sit down with me and go over his Christmas list which he just completed.

Staring Contest - Rylee Wins!!

Teething Contest - Kavan Loses!

Also, some still shots of the movie ATHLETE have been posted on Flickr. Very cool, Dave! Click Here!

Kellie & Carrie - ATHLETE Still Shot

Kellie - ATHLETE Still Shot

ATHLETE Update

I was so pleased to see the latest blog entry for the movie ATHLETE. Kudos to Dave Lam for such incredible dedication and focus on completing the production of a movie that will no doubt be inspirational through and through. Congrats Dave!

Blog entry: ATHLETE

Dad Digs Kiteboarding

My Dad rolled into town at 12:03AM (yes, AM) Sunday morning after driving 18 hours from NY. He is nutz but now you know where I get it from! I help him carry his stuff up to the condo and the heaviest bag is the one with his camera equipment. Oh yea, he also made sure he had his Mac with him as the camera is useless without Photoshop

Lucky for us there was a REALLY cool Kiteboarding competition a few blocks from the condo and Dad was out there snapping away with a huge smile on his face. He got some really great shots and with a little help from Photoshop check out some of the pictures (click on the pics and you will be impressed)…

Catching some air

Riding the wave

Sweet!

Cool Kite

Making Waves

My Dad rocks

26.2 & The Check WAS In The Mail

Top of the list is a HUGE congratulations to my Aunt Marie for finishing her 1st ever Marathon!!! She is turning 60 on Saturday and celebrated with a great finish (Chip Time: 5:50; Pace/mile: 13:20)! Her first race was almost two years back when she came to Miami to run the Half and she told us then she had so much fun she would think about the full. We are all so proud of her!

2007 Mimi Marathon - Aunt Marie

Next…

Well, a little over a week ago I signed the contract to be sponsored by athletefocus.com and mailed it in. Yesterday I got a goody bag in the mail with stickers, post cards and the check

I have had a really great time connecting with other athletes on the site and participating in forums. I have had a really cool chica who is 39 reach out to me from VT and she is big into wake and snowboarding and I also received a “connection” from a young girl from Australia who competes in surfing. Neat to hear about other sports other than triathlons!

Cool stuff!

Lastly, there were a few things that happened this week that I wanted to share.

1st – a lady I work with, unbeknown to me, had a young daughter with leukemia. I found out on Tuesday that her 12 year old daughter died and discovered why and found out that she took all her conference calls from the hospital for over a year sitting by her daughters bed. Wow, it hit me hard and really made me realize how lucky we are to be healthy and be able to get out and do what we love to do. Life is too short so we all need to count our blessings, be happy and enjoy life. This is also a plug to give your time to volunteer where possible. I will be doing more of that in 2009.

2nd – I was at the gym today working out and got on a machine next to two ladies that were looking at me and talking in Spanish (after 4 yrs. of Spanish classes you would think I knew what they were saying)! One of them looked at me and said, “We were both complaining about not wanting to work out and when you walked by you inspired us.”  They both added more weight to the leg machines so I think they will be cursing my name tomorrow but the moral of the story is everyone needs inspiration including pro-athletes, CEOs and me. Inspire where you can, use others to inspire you and keep finding your limits in what you love to do.

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!!

A Day Off

Today is Columbus Day and my awesome employer, Bank of America, considers this a holiday. Actually they give us 10 holidays throughout the year, who knew there were so many? The great thing is that it is a BEAUTIFUL day here, low 80′s and partly cloudy.

After hitting the gym for a 3,400 yd swim and an hour of core and lifting I went to check out a condo and a house with my friend Saswata who is looking to purchase a home. For some reason he likes my advice, he has adult ADD (not kidding, his attention span is maybe 5 seconds!) so he thinks bringing me along will help balance his decision. I am opinionated so it actually works out!

Then off to the beach and it was great. Saw some surfers and a land surfer which I have never seen before but man does that look like a great core workout!

Jax Beach Pier

Surfers at the Pier

Land Surfer

Okay, a little vacuuming, dusting, windows and laundry did take up some time!

Then topped off the evening with AWESOME FISH TACOS at The Fish Company with Saswata and my two little buddies, Calliou & Leo.

Yummy

Leo & Calliou

And What A Day It Was

If you are a tri-geek you were sitting at your computer watching the streaming video for way too many hours soaking in the 30^th Anniversary of the Ford Ironman World Championship coverage and boy was it exciting.

The action started on the bike when Macca, last years champion, dropped out of the race due to mechanical problems and when Chrissie Wellington, the woman favored to win, flatted and took 10 min to get herself back on the bike. She used the time wisely to “relieve herself”, that’s my girl! Just to show you the comradery of the athletes out there, Rebekah Keat actually stopped and gave Chrissie a spare tube. Too bad no one was willing to give Macca a bike

Chrissie Crushing The Bike

Macca Out Of The Race

It was pretty incredible to see the bike speeds drop as the athletes were heading north to Hawi due to pretty tough headwinds but looks like the tailwind coming back into Kawaihae were going to relieve the athletes for a bit. The last 6 miles heading into T2 it looked ugly out there. Chris Lieto, who is a pro cyclist and NOT a light guy, was getting blow sideways on his bike. Headwind and side wind coupled with some tough rollers truly made the bike challenging for all the athletes. 

Descending Bike Splits

Before we get to the run let’s talk about fashion. My three favorites are:  

#1 – Faris Al-Sultan – wearing a speedo the entire Ironman is pretty gutsy. Seriously, how does that feel on the bike? The dude just seems to be really cool and laid back so keep wearing that speedo! 

Fariss Sporting The Speedo

 

 #2 – Torbjorn Sindballe (the “Viking”) – Sporting the long sleeve shirt with the theory that if you keep it wet it will keep your body temperature down. Honestly, it was making me hot just looking at him. 

 

 

Torbjorn In His Long Sleeves

 #3 – Chris Lieto – He just looks GOOD in that his tri top/bottom. It is hard to wear white but he wears it well. If he could just work on his run form

K-Swiss Chris

 Back to the run, it looked like it was pretty hot out there. After a tough bike it was exciting to see Enero Llanos Burguera take Normann Stadler but then Craig Alexander showed them who was boss. The guy was flying with 6:17 splits (2:45 m arathon…that is insane!). Then there is a Chrissie Wellington who, after a 10 min stop for a flat, still took top on the bike leg and ran a PHENAMINAL run pushing a 6:47 pace.

Enero Passing Norman

Craig Showing Everyone Who Is Boss

SHAWN BURKE, YOU ARE A HAWAII IRONMAN FINISHER!!

The most exciting part was watching my coach and good friend, Shawn Burke, cross the finish line of the Ironman he as been dreaming of for many years. For Shawn this was just a training day in preparation for IM Florida in 3 weeks. He was out there soaking it all in and having fun, and his smile when crossing the finish was incredible. Way to go, Shawn!!

Shawn Crossing The Finish

Two things I learned from the IM:

1- The run is what will make you or break you (notice Craig’s name was not on the leader board off the bike).

2- The weather forcast was SO off. The head, winds and humidity were much worse then they depicted!

* note: all pictures were taken from the streaming video, sorry for the poor quality

Congratulations to all the IM World Championship finishers. You ARE the top endurance athletes in the world!

70.3 Miles of Fun

The last race of the season was a BLAST! A great venu, great friends and perfect weather. Could you ask for more to end your tri season? The inagural Atlantic Cost Triathlon at Amelia Island started with a fantastic ocean swim. Okay, I hate ocean swims and the jelly fish that stung me, I curse you! But after sucking down a ton of salt water it could only go up from there.

The bike course was really well kept and scenic and the run course was through tree covered Fort Clinch with plenty of shade. It was fun to see all my friends throughout the course and cheer them on. We had some great finishes and here are a few.

Joy - 4th AG Finish

JC - 3rd OA Female

Shawn - 1st Male Masters

Saswata - 5th AG

Shawn (Hercules) - 5th AG

Kerry - 3rd AG

Me - 3rd AG

NOTE TO SELF…DO NOT PUT YOUR GELS IN YOUR SPORTS BRA WHEN THEY ARE TAKING PICS

Me with lopsided boobies

Offseason has officially started

Life After Racing

After a few days of freaking out over my race season ending (more on the last race in the next entry) I stated to embrace the freedom and began to think about the rest of this year and plot out what I want to do differently next year.

I am going to take the next few weeks and do what I want before I have a 6 week painful “train like a cyclist” schedule. My main focus will be getting back my muscle that I lost over the season. I want my abs and arms back!! This is what I can look like if I really work at it

My sister hitting the ultra-body circuit!

I am also looking VERY forward to visiting my sister, Heather, and her family and watching my little Kavan (3) run a kids race, meeting my new niece, Rylee, and pacing my sister to a PR in a half marathon. Her training is going great and her pace is ON for a PR.

I am also looking forward to watching my friends in Ironman Florida on November 1st. We have a strong group going from Jacksonville and I see some top age group spots being taken.

Next year I am really going to focus on improving my power on the bike and GOD KNOWS I need to work on my swim.  I am focused and know what I need to do. I am planning on doing my major races towards the second part of the year and have committed to the inaugural Augusta 70.3 in September and will be signing up for IM Arizona in November.

What I am most excited about is taking the first part of the year to find the “other” side of life. In Q2 I hope to see great success with the premier of the movie ATHLETE by the incredibly talented director/producer, Dave Lam. I have never seen so much passion and dedication going into producing a film that will hit the hearts of so many “everyday” athletes. He is also doing so much good to give back to the community through the CYCLE OF GIVING.

I also miss taking a true vacation. No planned event, just a vacation. I have been looking at some fantastic adventures in Costa Rica that I will put on my docket for 2009. Diving is top of the list along with learning how to surf, hitting the rain forest and all the other cool things Costa Rica has to offer.

White Tip from my Galapagos Trip

Sea Lion - Galapagos

I think I am learning that there is life after the season ends

The Few, The Proud, The World Championship Qualifiers

It is hard to explain the time, dedication and pure self-discipline it takes to even get to the start line of a half or full Ironman. There are a few people in this world that take it to the next level and prove they ARE the top Ironman athletes in their age group and that is quite an accomplishment. Yesterday evening we had the chance to celebrate with those that have achieved this unimaginable feat and it was just awesome.

There are just under 2,000 athletes from around the world that qualify for a spot in Kona and just under 2,000 athletes that qualify for Clearwater, FL (World Championship 70.3) each year. There are a few friends that I had the chance to celebrate with at a Luau party and they were all smiles!

My coach and friend, Shawn Burke, was there accepting the coveted shirt that he earned in Ironman Arizona earlier this year as he raced to the finish and took the last slot in his age group by 11 seconds.

Shawn & His Cool Shirt

Shawn & His Son Coen

Then there is my girl, JC! She is the toughest chick I know and last year she did her first Ironman and qualified for Kona (who does that?). Although she did not take her slot she came back this year to take a slot for the World Championship 70.3 and we could not be more proud of her.

JC & Her Husband Joey

Then there is the most amazing woman of them all, Susan Wallis. She is the President of the HammerHead Triathlon Club we all belong to and has gone to Hawaii more times then we could count. This year she qualified in Ironman Austria and she will be heading to Kona this Saturday.

Susan & Angie

Way to go guys! We are VERY proud of you ALL!

This Saturday a group of us will be heading to Amelia Island to do a Half Ironman. I will be staying with my cool chica’s JC and Joy. Shawn coaches all three of us so we are fondly called “Charlie’s Angels” and we plan on making Charlie proud.

Charlie's Angels - Joy, Kellie, JC